Often at the opening of this New Year as I found myself wishing happiness to someone, I bit my lip. Given the sad state of the world as 2004 slips away into scarred history, how can we indulge in the insular luxury of carefree joy to accompany us into 2005? We know there will be massive human suffering and death, lingering destruction, and chaos of unprecedented proportions almost sure to last the whole twelve months. Who of us can truly be happy under the shadow of that dread?
One contributor to the misery is the continuing war in Iraq. Human hands are responsible for provoking it, for executing it, and for prolonging it. But an even more current and troubling cause of the disaster scene the world faces this new year is the apocalyptic tsunami that punished, pummeled and drowned so much of civilization in south Asia during the closing days of 2004. We can find no human scapegoat for that. Some might even label the causative culprit an “Act of God!”
Those very words seem offensive. Does our Creator, this Lord of love, this Source of goodness and mercy and comfort, really will this evil to descend upon the very humanity that, according to Genesis, was fashioned in the divine image? This question has troubled believers for centuries. Is the Noah story a metaphor for this recent cataclysmic flood? If this is retribution for gross sin, why were some of the poorest folks on the globe swallowed by the mammoth tidal wave, while we in the more prosperous and developed world were afloat in our comfortable ark of commerce and art?
Horrible events of this magnitude are rare, it is true. But from such bold invasions of our collective awareness comes an opportunity for discovery, perhaps even for repentance. This remorse can be followed by New Year’s-like resolutions for more constructive personal and political conduct and action. I have often tried to cite the transforming power of what has been termed “event communication”, the happenings at various levels that we can never forget and that provoke behavioral change.
If that is true, what have we learned? What do we do? Where do we start? You can’t prescribe for me nor I for you. Each of us needs to spend a little time cogitating on the new shape of the world in this new year. And we need to imagine ourselves busy in partnership with like-minded family and neighbors and those in our respective networks (almost all of us seem to have one these days) sharing ideas, organizing, preaching, teaching and acting! We don’t have to look far for ways to help. There are channels open through both religious and secular agencies. I have filmed some of their relief and development work in the Third World and know they are efficient and trustworthy. Save the Children, Unicef, Catholic Relief Services and Lutheran World Relief are just some of those reachable on their websites or by phone and ready to receive our donations.
For me, one of the learned insights is in the attitudinal gift of compassion. Having it, I believe, is more valuable than happiness, personal comfort or perfect health. While altruism may be learned, normally it is not earned. It’s a gift, a part of the same divine grace that offers us faith, hope, love and, yes, happiness. I believe the Creator wills us to have this free blessing of compassion, and will use its reception by each of us as a Lordly tool. If the empathetic concern of citizens like you and me can multiply into a massive lobby, our government will respond and never justifiably be called “stingy”. Indeed, this has already happened with the Asian tsunami emergency contribution from the U.S. that suddenly climbed from $15 million to over $300 million, with more likely coming. A hopeful sign for meeting the major challenge before us in 2005.
Perhaps then, 12 months from now, we can ring in the New Year of 2006 by sharing, without compunction, the traditional greeting: HAPPY NEW YEAR!
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| Page last modified by Richard Lee on 19 March 2005 |
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